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Monday, 22 October 2012

Injury time

Its always difficult being injured. Especially when the injury is so lame that you can hardly justify being out of the water yourself without thinking in your head that you sound like a whining 6 year old (I had my toenail removed and have to wait 6 weeks for it to heal properly).

Without surfing, rugby, football and running I am feeling a bit at sea, well not at sea, that would mean I was surfing rather than sitting around scratching my arse in the evenings and weekends. And its especially hard when in a fool hardy move I decided to join the London Surf Club at the moment I knew I couldn't surf for 6 weeks... The London Surf Club?! I hear you ask.. yes it does exist. We meet monthly in, as you would expect, a bar near Warren Street. So now I have emails filling up my inbox every morning about trips to just about every corner of the UK happening, what seems like, every single waking second. Throw in to the mix the epic 6ft @ 15 sec swell that hit the South West this weekend, a newly acquired driving licence and a free weekend and you can see why I am curled up in the corner holding my knees rocking back and forwards sobbing hysterically.... You can see why right... Right?!

My brother Robsy and I entering the water at Putsborough. June 2011.

However, it hasn't all been doom and envy clouded gloom. The London Surf Film Festival hit town last weekend. Now I'm not a big movie goer. In Empire's 100 Greatest films of all time list I've seen under 20. But the lure of a surf film festival 80 miles in land (at least they held it close to the River) couldn't be resisted. I bought 2 tickets immediately to North of the Sun only to realise that I had no one to go with. My brother, the only surfer I know for 80miles was back at Uni in Cardiff and even my long suffering Girlfriend couldn't be coerced with the promise of Pizza Express and wine as she was away for the weekend. I got in contact with an American (I know but times were tough) that I met at the London Surf Club and asked, in what I hoped wasn't too desperate a tone, if he fancied coming along. Thankfully he agreed. After having to explain to him who this Ed Sheeran (#Gingerlizard) was and why we had to fight our way through hundreds of teenage girls to get to the cinema we sat down pint in hand and saw this little beaut of a film about 2 crazy Norwegians spending the winter surfing in the Arctic Circle before getting drunk back in good old Finsbury Park.

North of the Sun went on to win best documentary which was thoroughly deserved (although I saw none of the other films). In the Q&A session afterwards Inge (one of the stars of the documentary) described how one of the challenges in spending the winter in a home made shack on a beach in the arctic circle was keeping entertained during their 9 month stay of mostly darkness. Apparently the way they overcame the boredom of defrosting wetsuits and chopping wood was by reading aloud chapters of a book to each other which they called 'watching TV'. They would then discussed it after treating it as a TV soap which was probably far more fun than trying to sit through an episode of Eastenders.

In the spirit of the LSFF I have myself been busy editing together a holiday video from an epic week long surf/drinking trip to Newquay back in July of this year, which has probably added to my sea sickness! Nothing as mad as North of the Sun but still a solid trip. I have found myself replaying and replaying this one wave from the trip as the combination of perfectly clean 4ft waves and the setting sun have become hypnotic; currently acting as my methadone.

If you were out there this weekend enjoy the stoke you lucky bastards. I'm off to battle with a very different tube!